Favoriten

FAVORITEN enters a classroom in Vienna's district Favoriten and stays close to a group of seven- to ten-year-old children and their committed teacher. The film watches lessons, routines and small daily upheavals with calm attention, allowing moments of joy, frustration and discovery to emerge naturally. FAVORITEN is built around presence and observation. Over three years, Ruth Beckermann follows the class as the children move through learning, conflict and the unfinished business of growing up. Their days bring victories and defeats, and the film gives equal weight to both. It pays close attention to how a teacher can support them while they search for a place in a world that often feels distant. The classroom becomes a lens on larger social questions. Favoriten was once a working-class district, and today many children in its primary schools do not speak German as their first language. FAVORITEN treats that reality without simplification, linking education to belonging, language and the way a future is negotiated in school. Ruth Beckermann’s long-term observation keeps the children’s perspective at the center and looks at structural problems in the school system with sensitivity and restraint. The film premiered in Berlinale Encounters at the 74th Berlinale and was also shown at Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt/Main and Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. FAVORITEN remains an attentive portrait of a community in motion, inviting viewers to look closely.